Rumonge commune threatens 130 families with land seizure
Communal authorities want to reclaim about 600 hectares on Mutambara hill, land residents have farmed for decades.
About 130 families, including roughly 10 widows, living on Mutambara hill in the Gatete zone of Rumonge commune, in Burunga province in south-western Burundi, say communal authorities are threatening to expropriate their land. They have been locked in a land dispute with the administration since 2023 over parcels they have worked for several decades.
The dispute centres on where the boundary lies between state land and the plots the residents occupy and cultivate, an area estimated at about 600 hectares. Residents say their plots were allocated under rural development programmes, including the PIA-RU.BU.BU, and that they received cession contracts although the state kept ownership. They have farmed the land without interruption since the programme was dissolved, growing food crops and oil palms, and some plots have passed through inheritance or been sold between individuals.
The families are asking the authorities to clarify the limits between public land and the land they claim, to end a conflict they say threatens their livelihoods.
Why it mattersIf the authorities proceed, the families stand to lose the food crops and oil palms on which they depend, and the parcels they have inherited or bought.